Share

PSU Teams get $1.4 Million in Conservation Research Grants

Posted: October 19, 2011

Four research teams in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences recently were awarded a total of more than $1.4 million in Conservation Innovation Grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grants will fund research aimed at developing innovative conservation technologies and approaches that address existing and emerging natural-resource issues.

The awards are among 52 grants that were announced recently by USDA's Natural
Resource Conservation Service to help some of America's top agricultural and
conservation institutions, foundations and farmers develop unique approaches to
enhancing and protecting natural resources on agricultural lands.

"The grants will help to spur creativity and problem solving to benefit
conservation-minded farmers and ranchers," said Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack. "Everyone who relies upon the sustainability of our nation's natural
resources for clean water, food and fiber, or their way of life, will benefit
from these grants."

"We will be operating and experimenting with a type of anaerobic digester --
often referred to as a stackable manure digester, or dry digester -- that is
uncommon in the United States but has been proven in Europe," said project
leader Glen Cauffman, manager of Penn State farm operations. "It produces biogas
used to fuel the engine of a generator to produce electricity," he said. "The
stackable material digester can be fed by a variety of materials as
feedstocks."

For many livestock operations that also have the capability of growing
biomass crops, the stackable material digester is a good alternative for on-farm
or regional production of biogas from manure and other sources, Cauffman
explained.

"The major goal of this project is to provide new farm owners and managers of
small, high-density livestock and horse operations with the knowledge, skills
and equipment necessary to implement pasture, nutrient and sediment management
systems for their operations, and to use conservation principals as a marketing
tool," said Ann Swinker, extension horse specialist, who will collaborate with
Donna Foulk, extension educator in Northampton County, and Daniel Kniffen,
extension beef specialist.

-- "Swine Manure Odor Reduction Using a Humic Amendment On-Farm
Demonstration," $40,000. "This project focuses on implementing the use of new
technologies or approaches for removal of odors from confined animal operations
and land-applied manure," said Robin Brandt, project co-leader and lecturer in
the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

"We'll work to determine practice effectiveness and develop cost data and
standards for implementation," he said. "The project will demonstrate the
efficacy of a commercial humic-material product for control of liquid swine
manure odors at two 2,250-pig, tunnel ventilated, deep-pit finishing barns in
Mifflin County, Pennsylvania."

Collaborators on this grant are Douglas Schaufler, an engineer working in the
farm operations unit at Penn State, Calvin Ernst, Crawford County farmer and
proprietor of Ernst Conservation Seeds in Meadville, and Lloyd Byers, a farmer
in Perry County.

The project is aimed at demonstrating to agricultural producers that oilseed
crops are viable energy producers. Researchers will develop filtration systems
to clean vegetable oil, one farmer will utilize home-grown oil to heat his home,
and another will operate two tractors on farm-produced vegetable oil.

"Oilseed crops such as canola, camelina and sunflower have been raised
successfully in Pennsylvania," Schaufler said. "Acceptance of these crops for
fuel by farmers is slow, often because there are limited markets for the oil and
for the meal that is produced when extracting the oil." Oil from oilseed crops
has not displaced petroleum-based fuels in on-farm energy uses in Pennsylvania,
Schaufler noted. But now, with increasing fuel oil and diesel fuel costs,
farm-grown energy crops are a tool that can help farmers add stability and
control to these energy costs.

"Tractors have been successfully run for three years at Penn State on
straight vegetable oil produced from canola grown in central Pennsylvania," he
said. "Farmers are asking more questions, and some are interested in modifying
some of their equipment to use straight vegetable oil that they extract from
crops raised on the farm."